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Monday, April 4, 2016

Chris Eboch: Fiction Makes Learning Fun

Writers, teachers, and parents know that the way to get kids
excited about reading and learning is to make reading and learning fun. This
means telling exciting stories, not merely teaching boring lists of facts.

I
often get e-mails from teachers who are using one of my historical novels in
the classroom, and they report enthusiasms from the students. A teacher at a
middle school in Washington state once
told me, “We have been using your book, The Well of Sacrifice, as one of our lit circle books this year.
Your book has been a very popular one for the kids … all levels of reading
ability, and strongly supports our social studies theme.”

Offering a teaching guide can make it easier for teachers to
incorporate your book into their classroom. One teacher used my Egyptian
mystery, The Eyes of Pharaoh, in a gifted
class of fourth and fifth graders in New Mexico. She said, “Using this
historical fiction has been a window into Ancient Egypt – its people, culture,
and beliefs. My class enjoyed doing research on Egyptian gods and goddesses,
and hieroglyphs. Projects extended their knowledge of this fascinating time and
place.”

Getting Your Guide

Today the educational buzzwords are Core Curriculum State
Standards (CCSS), and lesson plans that align with those standards may have
special appeal to teachers. It’s not hard to find educational experts who offer
services in creating CCSS-aligned teaching material. Expect to pay $150-$250
and up, depending on the type of guide. Debbie
Gonzales, who wrote the curriculum guide for The Eyes of Pharaoh, says, “Through the sharing of a well-crafted
Curriculum Guide, we can be of tremendous support to educators in sharing our
passion for the craft and our enthusiasm for reading by helping students hone
their CCSS skills.”

You can also develop your own teaching guides if you’re
willing to study the standards. “Most well-written books cover multiple CCSS
and it’s easy to relate them to a good book,” says Shirley Duke, coauthor of Teaching
STEM and Common Core with Mentor Texts, K-5, which illustrates how to do
lesson plans and can serve as a template. “Read the CCSS standard and then
consider how the book illustrates that idea.” Possibilities include everything
from identifying theme to understanding cause and effect to identifying
metaphors.

CCSS alignments aren’t the only possibility. Some states,
such as Texas, have their own standards, and it might be worth researching
those depending on your novel’s topic.

Beyond Language Arts

You might also have content that’s a better fit with social
studies or science standards. I worked on a book called Walk like an Elephant along with a
family interested in science. The book tells an exciting story about two kids
helping to rescue a baby elephant in Africa. It’s also packed full of science
information about animals, habitats, and much more. The teaching guide I helped
develop has Common Core literacy tie-ins for each chapter, plus science
projects on ecosystems, food webs, and the scientific method. We also included
ways young people can help save the elephants – a great way to teach them
science, social studies, and civic action.

Spellbound River Press,
a new company, is releasing teaching guides for each of its books. The first
list includes the re-release of The Ghost
Miner’s Treasure, the fourth in my Haunted series. That teaching guide has
discussion questions that cover everything from science to ethics. It also has
some writing and mapmaking projects. The teaching guides for The Sweet Spot and Magic Mayhem: Jinnie Wishmaker focus more on understanding
characters, while Operation Golden Llama
will have an extensive guide that covers vocabulary, comprehension, and
questions about Peru. It also has writing projects and an excerpt for theater.

Novels can be used to teach almost any concept you can find
in the classroom. Ask teachers what would help them in the classroom. Or if
you’re lucky enough to already have teachers using your book, see if they’ll
share their projects with you and allow you to share them with other teachers.

Another teacher who used The Well of Sacrifice in her fourth/fifth grade classroom
said, “This book is not only a great adventure for middle grade readers, but it
is a useful tool for classroom teachers…. We used the book as the backbone of
several language arts exercises such as: written and oral reports about the
Maya; literary criticism of characters, plot, and sequence; persuasive essays
on human sacrifice vs. murder and Mayan culture vs. our own culture; and art
projects from wood burning to mapping. We studied geography and the rainforest.
The students’ enthusiasm for this book pushed our curriculum into other
disciplines including math.”

Wow, what lucky students!

Something for Every Student

Enthusiastic teachers get students involved with a text
through a wide variety of projects, some clearly academic and some that appear
to be mainly for fun. Students enjoy drawing cartoons or developing skits of
scenes in the book. Persuasive letters or group discussions get a playful boost
by having the students write or speak from the point of view of one of the book’s
characters. Some teachers plan a party (perhaps with accompanying author visit)
to wrap up use of the book. Parents may send in appropriate snacks, and the
kids give presentations, using posters or dioramas to illustrate their areas of
research.

To some, this may not look
as educational as reading textbooks and memorizing information. However, people
learn
in a wide variety of ways. Some are more visual, benefiting from seeing
lots of images. Others are verbal, learning well from words in speech and
writing. Yet others need physical activity to help lock in information. Some
students may learn best in social groups, while others work better on their
own. Using a variety of projects in the classroom offers something to all of
the students.

Lesson plans

What do you do after you develop your lesson plans? You have
to get them into the hands of teachers. I offer mine on my website and also
make them available for free on sites where teachers can find lesson plans, Share My Lesson and Teachers Pay Teachers (you’ll
have to open accounts). If you have other ideas of where to share lesson plans,
or how to let teachers know about them, please post in the comments.

For lesson plans for The
Eyes of Pharaoh and The Well of
Sacrifice, visit my website’s for
teachers page. For lesson plans for The
Ghost Miner’s Treasure and other books coming out from Spellbound River
Press, visit the SRP For
Teachers page. The other series launching this spring are Cousins in Action: Operation Golden Llama by Sam Bond, Magic Mayhem: Jinnie Wishmaker by Deanna Roy, and The Sweet Spot by Stacy Barnett
Mozer.

Resources

Teaching STEM and Common Core with Mentor
Texts: Collaborative Lesson Plans, K-5, by

Anastasia Suen and
Shirley Duke

Writing for the Common Core: Writing,
Language, Reading, and Speaking & Listening Activities Aligned to the
Common Core, by Darcy Pattison

SCBWI’s The Book
lists people who do curriculum and book club guides under “Resources for
Published Authors & Illustrators.”

Chris Eboch’s novels for ages nine and up include The Eyes of Pharaoh, a mystery in
ancient Egypt; The Well of Sacrifice,
a Mayan adventure; The Genie’s Gift,
a middle eastern fantasy; and the Haunted series, about kids who travel with a
ghost hunter TV show.

DISCLAIMER

The authors of Project Mayhem do their best to provide accurate, witty, and sometimes manic information pertaining to all things middle grade. Any resemblance to anybody else's manic, witty, and accurate information is purely serendipitous. However, the views and opinions expressed herein are solely those of the individual authors, and do not necessarily reflect those of the other writers on this blog. Except, we all agree that reading Project Mayhem will brighten your day. Drop by mic.